by SCIAG »
16 Dec 2020 11:08
Snowflake Royal SCIAG Snowflake Royal Don't buy an excuse of doesn't take set pieces... get good enough to be on them. Obviously got the talent that should be doable.
Doesn’t particularly benefit the team.
A few years ago Liverpool signed Stewart Downing, Jordan Henderson and Charlie Adam. They were three of the most creative players in the league, creating a large share of their teams’ chances. Surely this would make Liverpool a more creative side? Well, you already know what I’m going to say - they were all set piece takers, and Liverpool already had Steven Gerrard. Adam took his fair share, but Downing and Henderson did not. I think between them they set up one goal in the first half of the season. If we lost Olise and Swift then Ejaria would get more assists, but it wouldn’t benefit the team.
The point being the best player takes the set pieces, so the he'd get more assists if he took set pieces argument doesn't wash with me.
The reason Olise gets the set pieces is he's better at them.
That makes sense if you compare him to other players at the club, but it doesn’t make sense when you compare him to players who don’t have to compete with Michael Olise for set piece duties. Did Jordan Henderson get worse at creating chances when he joined Liverpool? Did Jobi McAnuff become worse at creating chances when we signed Ian Harte? Did Frank Lampard become worse at set pieces on England duty when he had to compete with Beckham, Gerrard, etc?
Players who are narrowly the best set piece taker at their club receive a big boost to their assist figures relative to players who are narrowly second best, even though the best taker at Club A might be worse than the third best taker at Club B. Even clubs with crap corner takers tend to score three or four goals from corners in a season.
Sure, set pieces are an area where Olise has an advantage over Ejaria. But oddly, there’s more to football than whether Ejaria or Olise is better at set pieces. If two players get the same number of assists but one of them plays in a team with a better set piece taker, which one has done the rest of the game?
Probably easier to talk about with penalties. Imagine if Michael Morrison was the best penalty taker in the world. In that scenario, Lucas Joao wouldn’t have scored as many goals this season. Would that make him a worse striker? Let’s say Joao scored 20 goals with no penalties, while another striker scored 23 including five penalties and finished as the league’s top scorer - would you say that the other striker was definitively the best in the league?